The Building Tradesman Newspaper

Friday, September 06, 2013

By Marty Mulcahy, Editor

DETROIT – You don’t have to look too far back to see where all the anti-labor
legislation in Michigan came from. Union household votes have been
declining.

The statewide election of November 2010, said Michigan AFL-CIO President
Karla Swift, “set up all the bad things” that happened in 2011 and 2012, capped
off by passage of a right-to-work law in Michigan last December. But the years
leading up to that fateful 2010 election – which led to entire Republican
control of all offices of state government – could be foreseen in a gradual drop
in union households voting.

The share of Michigan union households voting fell from 43 percent in 2000 to
28 percent in 2012 – representing a drop of 500,000 voters. “We need to use our
power to build our way out of this hole we’re in,” Swift told delegates to the
Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council’s 50th Convention
last month. “And we have to work hard and fast as if our life depends on it –
because it does.”

One way out of the hole may be by emulating what labor unions are doing in
New Jersey, where the Garden State’s AFL-CIO has cultivated a long-term plan to
attract union-member candidates to public office, evaluate their chances, and
get them elected so that they can promote and defend organized labor’s causes.
Swift and the Michigan AFL-CIO want to start a similar program here.

The trend of declining union household participation at the ballot box is a
national one. Nationwide, union household voting share topped out in the last
two decades at 24 percent in 2000, falling to 18 percent in 2012. “The union
household vote has gone down in every state except New Jersey, and that’s why
it’s important to listen to what happened there,” Swift said.

“It’s critical to educate and inform union households, but we have to make
them excited and bought-in to the process,” Swift said. “And one of the ways to
do that is to bring them into the process as candidates.”

Michigan AFL-CIO Political Organizing Director Miles Baker told building
trades delegates that union households “will be more excited if a union brother
or sister is running for office.” He said the state AFL-CIO is starting a
program for candidates where “we’ll let them know we will work with them, we
share their values and we have their back.”

First comes the hard part: finding and cultivating union candidates for
public office. If running for local city councils, mayor, school boards, county
commissions, and even statewide offices like state representatives and senators
were easy, well-paying and fun, everybody would do it. But finding recruits is
not impossible – there are currently 900 union household members holding public
office in Michigan.

Baker and Brittany Smith, the state AFL-CIO’s legislative and policy
director, told building trades delegates that the state federation is developing
a “boot camp” for current and potential candidates for public office, to let
them know what to expect during the process of campaigning. They said the boot
camp would allow the union candidates to define themselves and their positions,
address what their opponents are going to say about him, and then give them
tools to spread their message.

“We will help them know their district, where to increase the vote, what the
persuasion targets are, and what worked and didn’t work for past candidates,”
Smith said. “But it’s not just about the candidate, it’s about the people on his
team who will learn what works and what doesn’t work.”

Baker said candidates “won’t walk out of boot camp knowing everything. They
will still have to knock on doors. But boot camp will help with fundraising,
building a team, defining roles – all the first steps to run for a new
campaign.”

Potential union candidates who are interested in running for public office
are asked to call the Michigan AFL-CIO, (517) 484-8427 for more information.